The Feynman technique is named after the physicist Richard Feynman, who was known for explaining hard ideas in plain words. The idea is simple: if you can't explain something simply, you don't understand it yet.
The four steps
- Pick a concept and write its name at the top of a page.
- Explain it in plain language, as if to a 12-year-old. No jargon you couldn't define.
- Find where you got stuck or fell back on vague words. That's your gap: go back to the source and fill it.
- Simplify again, and use an analogy if you can.
A worked example
Try explaining why an induction motor's rotor turns slower than its magnetic field. A first attempt might be "because of slip", which names the answer without explaining it. Pushing further: the field has to sweep past the rotor bars to induce a current in them; if the rotor caught up, nothing would sweep past, no current would flow and there'd be no push. Now it's understood, not just remembered.
Why it works
Explaining forces you to retrieve and organise what you know, which is active recall with structure. It also exposes the illusion of understanding: familiar words can hide the fact that you couldn't rebuild the idea yourself.
Using it for exams
- Use it on the topics you rate as shaky, not the ones you know.
- Write your explanation as an exam answer, then compare it with the mark scheme.
- Keep a list of the gaps it reveals and test yourself on them a day later.
How Type to Study helps
Ask the course tutor to check your explanation or to explain the hardest idea in simple words, with links back to the exact lesson. Then type the model answer until you can write it from memory.